-I can do it. I can crush him.
I promise. -[sighs]
Ah, screw it, go get him.
-Ready?
-Kick his [bleep] -"Parks and Recreation"
is a comedy that follows Leslie Knope,
played by Amy Poehler, who is a really optimistic,
super hardworking government employee,
and she just really loves the town that she's from,
Pawnee, Indiana.
-We're called the Pawnee Goddesses,
and we're freakin' awesome.
-And it's about how she's trying to improve the town
and also how she supports the friends in her life
and how they support her.
-Latest poll is Newport, 40%, Leslie, 32%
with everyone else way back.
Now, this debate is our best chance to close that gap.
-This episode,
it's in the middle of campaign season for Leslie.
She works for the Parks department,
but she's running for city council,
and she has an unexpected opponent
in the name of Bobby Newport,
who is the heir to a big candy corporation,
the biggest employer in town.
-I want to do a good job.
Because I like it when people think I do a good job.
And I want your vote because I want Pawnee and my dad
to see what I'm made of.
-We've already seen the first presidential debate,
and there's a lot of talk right now
about how to moderate debates, should there even be debates,
and what these spaces mean for the public and America's image.
Leslie has this plan of going out
with kind of an aggressive opening remarks,
and it quickly becomes clear
that she's coming off too aggressive.
-I believe that I've earned your vote.
Bobby Newport believes he can buy it.
And maybe that's because he's never earned
anything his entire life.
-That hurt my feelings.
-There's kind of this other undertone
of how women in particular running for political office
and they have to walk this line
oftentimes in how they're perceived,
and normally in a debate,
you know, like a presidential debate, there is a spin room.
That's one of those traditions that has gone by the wayside,
and no one's really mourning its loss.
It's really just people giving you quotes
that are just trying to spin what happened,
and it's not terribly useful as a reporter.
-Spin team! -Spin team!
-This is the best possible job for me.
I can literally make anything sound positive.
-So what we see on this episode
is maybe a view that a regular viewer at home
watching a presidential debate or any debate wouldn't see,
which is this kind of interaction.
-Just get out there and spin, man.
-You got it. -The end of the episode
is really this really heartfelt speech.
-If I seem too passionate, it's because I care.
If I come on strong, it's because I feel strongly.
And if! push too hard,
it's because things aren't moving fast enough.
-I think what the public is longing for
is that kind of a moment where a politician is just --
it feels like they're speaking from the heart
where it doesn't feel scripted
and it feels sincere and earnest and it moves you.
-Holy [bleep] Leslie. That was awesome.
-Local offices are really important.
People don't really pay attention to them as much,
but those are the officials and those government bodies
that actually have a lot of direct impact
on your day-to-day life.
-Today at 10:00, I filed the papers
to enter my name in the Democratic primary
as a candidate for the United States Senate.
-"The Candidate" is a 1972 film starring Robert Redford,
in which he is the son of a former governor of California
who is tapped to run against a popular incumbent Republican
senator in the state.
Over the course of the film, we see him transform
from this sort of lefty hippie super liberal guy...
-You saved some trees. -Yeah.
-You got a clinic opened. -That's no good?
-Does that make you feel good? -Not bad!
-... into a more polished,
more professional actual candidate
who then goes on to compete in this election.
Over the course of his campaign, the candidate,
his message gets muddier and blurrier,
and he's criticized fir that one point.
And his response is he's frustrated by it.
He doesn't want to be that candidate, but it's inescapable.
-Put the phone down and let's get this straight.
I want to know what the hell this campaign is!
-That is sort of a fact in a modern political campaign.
There's no way to accurately present yourself
to the public entirely.
His name is McKay in the movie,
and so you see all these little text treatments,
the "M-C," the "Mc" in "McKay"
and all these different variants on different-colored backgrounds
where they're just trying to figure out what the best way
to present just that part of his name.
And I think it's just sort of fascinating look at the way
in which so much of what we see of our candidates
is very much managed by a team of consultants,
people who are paid a lot of money to try
and figure out the best way, what's the best way,
the most impactful way to have people see the "Mc" in "McKay."
-What does it feel like to run a campaign
in this state these days?
-I wouldn't know. -[laughs]
-Did you really run your own campaign?
-Well [bleep] yes. What do you take me for?
-One of the fascinating things if you go back
and watch "The Candidate" now
is you see how many of the themes of the campaign
actually are still resonant, things like the environment,
things like crime, the ways in which, you know,
that you address the working poor,
all of those things are still issues in modern campaigns,
and the debates they're having fall very much along,
you know, partisan lines.
I think "The Candidate" obviously came at a time
when politics wasn't as saturated.
It was very, very important.
It was a huge election that year,
but it wasn't the force that it is now
that was released in 1972,
which is the year in which the Democrats were getting
absolutely walloped on the national ticket.
Richard Nixon won a massive reelection that year.
-I again proudly accept your nomination
for President of the United States.
-The Dems were totally a mess.
You know, we talk now about Dems in disarray.
This was absolutely the case in 1972.
There are all these overlaps that happened at that moment
that I think made this probably very resonant to the time,
and I think they were sort of instructive
for where we are now.